6 ms·

I've been waffling between whether or not I think this is a good thing. I am curious on your thoughts: A lot of malicious actors have learned how to game the s

I've been waffling between whether or not I think this is a good thing. I am curious on your thoughts: A lot of malicious actors have learned how to game the search ranking algorithms by making carefully crafted lies that are easily spread as truths online quickly. They are able to get their fake news to spread (and this rank higher) in ways that legitimate sources can't. Most people only ever look at the first page of results when searching for answers, and, let's be honest, take those answers for the truth. If you were a search engine provider and knew that viral, fake stories were able to do that, wouldn't not taking action also be making a decision about what you can and can't see? Inaction, in this case, would be tacit approval. Also you can still search for stories about how Russia is presenting the war, but you have to specifically look for it

eric_cc 5y ago
While you’re waffling > If you were a search engine provider and knew that viral, fake stories How does the search engine company know whether something is true or not?
- soundnote 5y ago
  The same way our esteemed fact checkers are unsure if being part of a bombing organization and getting convicted for possession of hundreds of pounds of explosives merits calling the person a terrorist.
- jollybean 5y ago
  It's at the core of Google algorithm: page rank. It uses 'trust'. That actually maps to how we work as a society. We cannot be experts in everything, we do not have the time, ability, wherewithal. So we 'trust' certain sources: Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Police, more than we do others i.e. criminals, sources of gossip, arbitrary people. This is why when people form those institutions fail us, it's a much bigger problem than otherwise. We should fire a teacher for teaching things that are wrong, but we don't worry about the guy walking down the street spouting nonsense. Over time, we learn who to trust, and also the ways in which we can trust them. 'Nature' has a lot of credibility in some ways, but it also doesn't mean they are always right, and, when it comes to softer issue, they can be politicised. Judges have more integrity than the average person, but they can also be biased. The NYT is a good source of information, but it depends if it's 'straight news or opinion'. Putin has a 'propaganda Army' of people trying to convince people of certain things, much of which are not true. People around the world will believe it if they are exposed to enough of it. The Russian and Cheese population apparently are willing to believe that UKR government is a bunch of 'Nazis and Drug Dealers'. Which is perverse. 'Information Reputation' is a really big deal and the only way it will work as a society is if we give the 'Conch' to those with greater credibility, otherwise, people will believe in 'whatever'. You can tell people almost anything and 30% of them will believe it if they want to, which is enough people to tilt the needle on so many issues.
  - eric_cc 5y ago
    Cool but who determines trust scores?
    - jollybean 5y ago
      Is it hard to determine the difference between The National Enquirer and Nature? Bias and lack of integrity is not actually very hard to spot. It's ultimately nuanced, but it's not rocket science. The challenge is not really with institutions, there are not that many of them, but rather with social media, individuals, commenters, state actors posing as 'regular people' etc..
      - eric_cc 5y ago
        > Is it hard to determine the difference between The National Enquirer and Nature? Try Fox News vs New York Times. > It's ultimately nuanced, but it's not rocket science. The challenge is not really with institutions, there are not that many of them, but rather with social media, individuals, commenters, state actors posing as 'regular people' etc.. Scoring how much you trust an entity to determine the truthfulness of information they are generating is flawed. In no way does this properly verify information’s truthfulness in and of itself. Even scoring “Information.Source.Trust Score”, which is just a single aspect of information, is still far more difficult to do than you apparently realize. How can a human build such a score with no bias?
        jollybean 5y ago
        Truthiness and bias are different. Also, 'editorial' vs. 'news' are actually different categories and we know what they are. 'Fox 5' - their evening show is pure gossip and innuendo - it has nothing to do with reality or the truth. Their nighthime 'personalities' are editorialists. But they do have regular news segments as well. All of that can be categorised. Also, the source of their bias can be roughly identified. Mostly they are a corporate entity playing to an American audience. They have some relationship with the White House on some occasions. We can delineate. Because it's a fairly established institution, we can also look at the other kinds of bias. And of course, each personality is different. They are not owned and controlled by the Kremlin, or the Canadian Government as is, the CBC for example. We can delineate there. It's really not that hard. And FYI it's not as though there is hard censorship - you can retrieve Putins' own 'Mein Kamp-ish' rants any time with fairly easy searches. What we don't want is bad misinformation seeping into the top of arbitrary searches etc.. If someone wants to read 'My Pillow Guy' that's fine, but his opinion on Putin is not going to come up up first when I search 'Putin', unless there's some other, factual, direct relevance.
Clubber 5y ago
>Most people only ever look at the first page of results when searching for answers, and, let's be honest, take those answers for the truth. Do you? The argument I'm hearing is that most people are stupid and those stupid people aren't smart enough to know better, so the smart people need to control their lives to "protect them." I'm not sure if you realize this but this was the same argument used to perpetuate slavery. Edit: Elaborated my argument.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > The argument I'm hearing is that most people are stupid and those stupid people aren't smart enough to know better Yup, exactly. And that argument is correct. > this was the same argument used to perpetuate slavery. > Edit: Elaborated my argument. No, created a huge strawman.
  - account42 5y ago
    Who do you think is smart enough to decide what the plebs should be allowed to hear and see? You?
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Any engineer who is as smart as the SEO-gaming trolls spreading disinformation from the RNC or the St Petersburg "Factory", and can write search engine rules to undo theirs. And the "plebs" would still "be allowed to hear and see" the fake news; un-gaming the Troll SEO will just put their dreck down on the eighth page of search results where it belongs, in stead of the first. (Well, "will"... Easily could, if it gets implemented that way. Which is all at least I would ask of the search engines.)
- oefnak 5y ago
  For most of my search queries, yes?
- Morgawr 5y ago
  The vast majority of people, absolutely, yes. I try to always look for alternative sources and look for "all sides" when it comes to news and stuff, but even I will admit 100% that I will not bother going past the first page of search results. If anything I'll make another search with more biased keywords to look for what I am actually interested in, but I'll rarely if ever go past the first page of results. I consider myself to be aware of most online misinformation or tactics and I still fall for this, I'd be surprised if the vast majority of "normal" users would be even more affected by it.

eric_cc 5y ago

While you’re waffling > If you were a search engine provider and knew that viral, fake stories How does the search engine company know whether something is true or not?

soundnote 5y ago
The same way our esteemed fact checkers are unsure if being part of a bombing organization and getting convicted for possession of hundreds of pounds of explosives merits calling the person a terrorist.
jollybean 5y ago
It's at the core of Google algorithm: page rank. It uses 'trust'. That actually maps to how we work as a society. We cannot be experts in everything, we do not have the time, ability, wherewithal. So we 'trust' certain sources: Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Police, more than we do others i.e. criminals, sources of gossip, arbitrary people. This is why when people form those institutions fail us, it's a much bigger problem than otherwise. We should fire a teacher for teaching things that are wrong, but we don't worry about the guy walking down the street spouting nonsense. Over time, we learn who to trust, and also the ways in which we can trust them. 'Nature' has a lot of credibility in some ways, but it also doesn't mean they are always right, and, when it comes to softer issue, they can be politicised. Judges have more integrity than the average person, but they can also be biased. The NYT is a good source of information, but it depends if it's 'straight news or opinion'. Putin has a 'propaganda Army' of people trying to convince people of certain things, much of which are not true. People around the world will believe it if they are exposed to enough of it. The Russian and Cheese population apparently are willing to believe that UKR government is a bunch of 'Nazis and Drug Dealers'. Which is perverse. 'Information Reputation' is a really big deal and the only way it will work as a society is if we give the 'Conch' to those with greater credibility, otherwise, people will believe in 'whatever'. You can tell people almost anything and 30% of them will believe it if they want to, which is enough people to tilt the needle on so many issues.
- eric_cc 5y ago
  Cool but who determines trust scores?
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Is it hard to determine the difference between The National Enquirer and Nature? Bias and lack of integrity is not actually very hard to spot. It's ultimately nuanced, but it's not rocket science. The challenge is not really with institutions, there are not that many of them, but rather with social media, individuals, commenters, state actors posing as 'regular people' etc..
    - eric_cc 5y ago
      > Is it hard to determine the difference between The National Enquirer and Nature? Try Fox News vs New York Times. > It's ultimately nuanced, but it's not rocket science. The challenge is not really with institutions, there are not that many of them, but rather with social media, individuals, commenters, state actors posing as 'regular people' etc.. Scoring how much you trust an entity to determine the truthfulness of information they are generating is flawed. In no way does this properly verify information’s truthfulness in and of itself. Even scoring “Information.Source.Trust Score”, which is just a single aspect of information, is still far more difficult to do than you apparently realize. How can a human build such a score with no bias?
      - jollybean 5y ago
        Truthiness and bias are different. Also, 'editorial' vs. 'news' are actually different categories and we know what they are. 'Fox 5' - their evening show is pure gossip and innuendo - it has nothing to do with reality or the truth. Their nighthime 'personalities' are editorialists. But they do have regular news segments as well. All of that can be categorised. Also, the source of their bias can be roughly identified. Mostly they are a corporate entity playing to an American audience. They have some relationship with the White House on some occasions. We can delineate. Because it's a fairly established institution, we can also look at the other kinds of bias. And of course, each personality is different. They are not owned and controlled by the Kremlin, or the Canadian Government as is, the CBC for example. We can delineate there. It's really not that hard. And FYI it's not as though there is hard censorship - you can retrieve Putins' own 'Mein Kamp-ish' rants any time with fairly easy searches. What we don't want is bad misinformation seeping into the top of arbitrary searches etc.. If someone wants to read 'My Pillow Guy' that's fine, but his opinion on Putin is not going to come up up first when I search 'Putin', unless there's some other, factual, direct relevance.

Clubber 5y ago

>Most people only ever look at the first page of results when searching for answers, and, let's be honest, take those answers for the truth. Do you? The argument I'm hearing is that most people are stupid and those stupid people aren't smart enough to know better, so the smart people need to control their lives to "protect them." I'm not sure if you realize this but this was the same argument used to perpetuate slavery. Edit: Elaborated my argument.

CRConrad 5y ago
> The argument I'm hearing is that most people are stupid and those stupid people aren't smart enough to know better Yup, exactly. And that argument is correct. > this was the same argument used to perpetuate slavery. > Edit: Elaborated my argument. No, created a huge strawman.
- account42 5y ago
  Who do you think is smart enough to decide what the plebs should be allowed to hear and see? You?
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Any engineer who is as smart as the SEO-gaming trolls spreading disinformation from the RNC or the St Petersburg "Factory", and can write search engine rules to undo theirs. And the "plebs" would still "be allowed to hear and see" the fake news; un-gaming the Troll SEO will just put their dreck down on the eighth page of search results where it belongs, in stead of the first. (Well, "will"... Easily could, if it gets implemented that way. Which is all at least I would ask of the search engines.)
oefnak 5y ago
For most of my search queries, yes?
Morgawr 5y ago
The vast majority of people, absolutely, yes. I try to always look for alternative sources and look for "all sides" when it comes to news and stuff, but even I will admit 100% that I will not bother going past the first page of search results. If anything I'll make another search with more biased keywords to look for what I am actually interested in, but I'll rarely if ever go past the first page of results. I consider myself to be aware of most online misinformation or tactics and I still fall for this, I'd be surprised if the vast majority of "normal" users would be even more affected by it.